Secondary Menu

Beekeeping Honey Extracting Field Cart

About: I am currently taking over my grandparents farm, and working towards getting off the grid, and a sustainable life.
More About LoganMackey »

This instructable is for building a cart to hold a 2 frame honey extracting barrel, 5 gallon honey bucket with strainer.
And a metal bucket to hold the capped wax.
This came about last year when i harvested honey, and dragged all the frames back to the garage to uncap them this as messy and labor intensive. So i needed something that could secure the extracting barrel when spinning the frames. And that i could drag it to the hives and extract the honey at the hives this should be easier on both me and the bee's.

Step 1: Stuff You Will Need

Step 2: Step One: Build the Base

I didnt measure anything here, so i cant give you lengths. i just built this around the size of the buckets.
So i built a rectangle out of 2 x 4. Then cover half with some ply wood, (all of this wood was from a floor i tore out)

Step 3: Step Two: Build the Vertical Support

Now build a second 2 x 4 box and make a T with it on the other and nail the whole thing into place.

Step 4: Step Three: Build the Second Level

Now you have your vertical support nail some 2 x 4 on each side and another plywood shelf on top of that, make sure that it hangs over half the bucket and is tall enough for the bucket with strainer to sit under.

Step 5: Step Four: Second Level Add On's

I added two things to the top of this some boards on the sides to hold the extracting bucket into place. And a couple of plywood strips on the back, this is two hold the bucket at a slant so the honey can pour into the bottom bucket faster.
Now dot where the U bolt will fit over and secure the pour spout on the extracting bucket and drill those holes.

Step 6: Step Five: Painting

i slapped on a coat of white paint i had around to make it easier to keep clean.

Step 7: Step Six: Field Proofing the Cart

OK now the paints dry, i secure the extracting bucket with the U bolt. Tape the honey strainer to the top of the bucket. Make sure the only way into the bucket is through the strainer.
And bungee cord the bottom bucket into place, and now take some mesh and tape it around the bucket and the our spout. Make sure no bees can fly in and get stuck in the honey.
Add your bee tools and a metal bucket for holding the capped wax and and a bread knife, and the rest of your bees stuff.

NOW FOR THE WHEELS........ crap i don't have anything to use for wheels so i will have to add them on later and use a wheel borrow.

ok now i can uncap and extract the honey and wax at the hives saving alot of time and effort.

This is a great idea, but the problem you will run into is when you start extracting honey ANYWHERE near a beehive, you will initiate what is referred to as a "robbing frenzy". Basically the bees will all go insane trying to collect all the extra "free" honey. Your best bet is to build another cart and just load each honey super with all it's frames onto the cart and, once you have all your honey supers, roll them to your nifty extractor cart in a "bee-proof" area. Extract, then give each super back to the bees to clean them up and then store them for the winter. BEWARE THE ROBBING FRENZY!

well i hate to tell you, but none of what you just said happened. There was no feeding frenzy or robbing frenzy, when i extracted the honey using this cart. i plan on adding wheels this year and extracting like this from now on.

Extracting the honey like this was much much much easier i did it right next to the other hives.

The first time i harvest honey i took the frames out, and extracted the honey in my barn, this was awful the bees swarmed my barn took weeks to get them all out of there. Grabbing hands full of bees and put them into a bucket, pouring them back in there hives.

Using this cart and extracting them at the hives, was SOOO much faster and easier.

First i take off the top super with the lid on, take the lid off and take the inner cover, and put it back on top of the hive stack. Keep the top on top of the super your extracting.

Then pop off the lid pull out a frame, slide off the inner cover shake them back into the hive. Then after i extract all the honey i put all the frames back in the super and put it back. after the empty the super of the left over honey i usually take off the top supers for winter leaving just the 2 boxes.